Dynamite

“What now?” The young boy no older then fifteen asked, looking over at the man holding the notebook.

For a moment he stood there starring off into space, thinking off the bad timing of this news – their supplies lines were all but severed; they had lost communication with another resistance outpost; and the front line had been pushed back considerably in the past few weeks, cutting them off from one of their largest weapons depot.

“Gather everyone you can,” he said putting the notebook down. “Anyone old enough to fight is to report to me immediately. Collect as many weapons as you can find – anything, even if its something as simple as a pitch fork.” Moving he walked out of the dark cave were the old man now lay, dead, covered head to toe in soot and ash. As he walked he was followed by the other men who were in the room with him, men considerably younger then himself.

“Mitch, that won’t be very many. We have men in the field and many more injured.” One of the soldiers said, speaking up when the other would not.

“We have no choice. We can win the battle right now.” Mitch said, turning to face the others. “We still may lose the war, but if we don’t at least try and take this step we certainly will. Now go, get as many men as you can, we leave first thing in the morning.”

“You aren’t going with, are you?” The same man who spoke up before asked. “We need you here. Without you we are nothing more then kids playing a game of Cowboys and Indians.”

Mitch turned to face him as the others moved past them and ran down the hall. “I need to be there to make sure everything is executed properly.” Turning he opened the door to his private quarters and walk in, the younger man following behind. Before the younger man could answer back, Mitch opened a footlocker at the foot of his make-shift bed, the younger man stood in shocked silence when he saw the contents inside. “I am the only one who knows how to use this.”

Still unsure about what to say, the younger man knelt down and started to reach for the sticks of dynamite in the footlocker.

“No touching, Jason.” Mitch said closing the locker before he reached his hands inside. “This stuff if old and can be. . . moody.”

Programmed To Kill

They are programmed to kill. Even now, half assembled slung from the ceiling with most missing arms or legs or both, they reach out desperately trying to make their first kill. The ones with missing arms and legs track you as you walk by, their glowing eyes fixed on you and you alone, running scenario after scenario about how to disembowel you, incapacitate you, kill you.

Most here have never seen a human being before, and certainly most have never seen a human walking the halls that I walked. I found my way here only by mistake and yet it was exactly what I was looking for. Now I fear that I won’t make it out, which is why I am writing these words down before they find me in the hope that it might find its way back to the outside world and hopefully into the hands of one of the resistance.

Upon entering this hidden underground world who’s door is hidden behind a mountain of collected metal and various other forms of debris, high in the mountains as you follow the great road west, I noticed something disturbing – these forms that line the entrance way are getting more and more complete as I ventured further into it’s darkened depth. This is there production line. The machines that bomb our cities and abduct our citizens for their own mysterious purposes, are made right here, using the two giant hole in the side of this mountain as a springing off point for their destructive attacks.

It was then I hear, rather then see, something far more frightening as I gaze into the eyes of one of these machines, it’s eyes not yet glowing, it’s single arm not yet reaching out to strangle me. What I hear is metal clanking, distant at first and then growing louder. It sounded oddly familar . . . and that’s when it hit me, it sounded like footsteps.

My blood seemed to freeze solid in my veins and my heart thundered in my ears as I struggled to think of what to do, where to escape too? Soon my military training kicked in and I snap out of it. I quickly look around, but it’s dark and I cannot see, the only light coming from the door, far down a hallway that jutted out from the main corridor, which I had left half-way open.

As I continue to look, one of the machines comes to life – the one I had been inspecting just moments before. Even though it is still attached to the wires suspended from the ceiling, it still reached out for me with one arm, the other one completely missing, while it’s nubs for legs that were missing from the knee down, come to life as well.

I stumbled back, frightened that I had been detected, that they somehow knew that I was here. And yet, as I fall back and fall down, causing a loud clank on the metal girder floor, it does not track me, it does not turn it’s head. It is then that I also see that besides it missing two legs and an arm, neither of it’s eyes glow, it cannot see. It knows someone was there but what or who it has no way of knowing.

Then all of the sudden it’s left, incomplete arm rises and stays risen, almost like the Nazi salute. Behind me the clanking gets louder, and although I see nobody approaching I know whatever it is walking my way is just moments from reaching were I laid on the floor.

It is then that my hands discovers that the metal surface I was walking on was elevated off the ground, leaving a gap on both sides just wide enough for me to slide underneath. Without hesitating, I slide beneath the walk way and waited for the unseen figure to pass by.

No sooner that I slide underneath do I see through the holes in the walkway, two glowing eyes appear down the hallway. Again I freeze, trying not to breath or make any movements of any kind that will give my position away.

Within a few moments the machine walks right over me to were the other machines in various forms of dismemberment stand or hang from the ceiling. It then walks over to the other machine that seemed to come to life. The first holds out a replacement arm and proceeds to attach it to the machine that still has it’s arm extended out in a solute.

It didn’t take me long to realize the significance of what I had just seen. Although we had been fighting a war for years and years and these seemingly indestructible hulks of metal, a war we felt we were losing, apparently we were doing better then we thought. It would appear that we have disrupted their production lines to the point were they are no longer able to mass produce war machines. In fact, it would appear that they are struggling to repair the soldiers that have fallen into dis-repair.

If this facility can be destroyed, we might be able to take back the great city and everything east of the great mountains.

If I die trying to escape, whoever comes across this notebook must deliver it to the Resistance headquarters in the great city. I cannot tell you were it is located for fear that this notebook may fall into the wrong hands, I can only hope you will be able to find it on your own, for the destruction of this place could swing the tides of war convincingly into our favor.

First Kill

“Tell us, old man, what is so important that you have travelled so far to find us,”  a young man asked as an even younger women leaned in to dab the sweet off his forehead.

As the old man started to speak, the nurse tilted his head up and brought a glass of water to his lips. The water was discolored, almost brown, but the old man drank greedily.

“He needs to rest. Come back tomorrow morning, maybe then he can talk,” the nurse said as she took the glass away and whipped his chin clean.

“No, we need to know what he knows.” The young man answered back, brushing the nurse aside. “If he is who I think he is, what he has to tell us won’t, can’t wait.”

“He is right,” the old man answered back, thanking the nurse for the water as she left.

“Tell us old man, tell us what you have seen.” For a moment the old mans eyes rolled back inside his head. “Have you seen THEM? Have you seen where they are made.” The younger man shook him violently.

His eye lids fluttered open with a startle as he nodded his head yes.

“Then tell us, and tell us quick, I fear you will not survive the night.”

“I found where they are made, out past the sea of bones and even further still. Farther then I have ever been, out west.”

Rushed, the young man took a map from out of his pocket and held it up for the man to see. At the top was a single name – Denver – printed in large, yellow letters. “Where,” he asked taking the mans hand and helping him to extend his finger.

The older man whose eyes seemed unable to focus on much of anything starred at the map. He recognized street names and landmarks. He saw the name of the street that he used to walk into the city – 6th Avenue – although it was hardly recognizable now. Off at the end of the map he followed 6th Avenue to the intersection of I-70 and stopped as his finger reached the edge.

“No,” the old man said, his voice failing. “Far west. I came to two holes in a mountain, that is where they are made, where the road reaches it’s highest point, just before it drops down into a valley on the other side.” Again, the man closed his eyes and struggled to to take a deep breathe. “Hower Tunnel,” where his final words before all the muscles in his body seemed to go limp, allowing a dusty notebook, which he had kept clutched tightly to his chest, to fall to the floor.

The young men stood around him starring in disbelief as the last breath left his body. Then, after the realization that the man was dead seemed to sink in, one of them reached down and picked up the book.

With a quick swipe of his hand, he dusted off the front cover, and then flipped it open to the first page.